


Blink and you'll miss him

by CrystalInstinct



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Minor Character(s), Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Survivor Guilt, the relationship is not heavy handed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 10:20:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11712393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrystalInstinct/pseuds/CrystalInstinct
Summary: RVB15x17 Spoilers.What if Wash didn't make it? What if he bled out on that hanger floor?





	Blink and you'll miss him

**Author's Note:**

> Major spoilers for Rvb15x17. Read at your own risk.

It's not the first time he's seen things that aren't there. Flashes of hallucinations especially during intense combat isn't something that shakes him to his core anymore, not after everything he's been through during his lifetime. 

The thing that shocks him isn't the thing that he sees things that aren't there, it's _what_ he sees. First a flash of grey at the corner of his eye as he drives his sword diagonally across the torso of the nameless solider that charges at him during their assault on the blues and reds. It was only a flash, a single second of that familiar grey that had stood by his side for years now. He files it under exhaustion from the battle and moves on to slash at another solider.

The second time he sees him is during the trip back. As he rounds the corner on the ship, heading towards the storage room he knows to be empty just for those few moments of alone time away from Caboose, for those tantalizing seconds where he doesn't have to keep it up, where he doesn't need to maintain the facade he's put up. At the corner of his eyes he sees him. Standing far away, still and silent, for a second longer but he cannot get his eyes on him before he disappears again. He feels sick.

It repeats for weeks. A flash of grey, sometimes of light blue at the corner of his eye, in abandoned corners and empty corridors. Still and silent, the opposite of the storm raging inside of him. He doesn't know if he wants to see him, the pain of the divide and the void between them, the guilt nibbling at him at night that only worsens with every sighting. Yet his heart, what remains of it, sings with every glimpse. 

By the time he sees him during his routine nighttime walk he's almost prepared for it. He rounds the corner and there he stands. Dressed in his armor that shines like stars in the light of the moon that pours through the windows he stands at the end of the corridor with that same rigidness of his posture he only just started to lose when he had-. Pain pour over him like tar, heavy and thick suffocating him in its blackness as he stands still afraid to move, to talk, to blink. 

The figure at the other end of the corridor doesn't move. He doesn't move either. His heart beats inside of him like an alarm. He blinks. As he opens his eyes again, the figure is gone. He releases a breath he didn't know he had been holding, his hands unflinching and revealing deep, red marks in his palms. 

Others start to remark that he looks awful. He knows they're worried but he cannot stop the trickle of contempt from seeping into his words as he replies to them. He knows Carolina's in no position to lecture him, he knows she hasn't slept more than quick naps since it happened. He snaps at Kimball and sees her eyes harden at his words. He relishes in the punishment she doles out as he pushes himself to the limit and way past it on the lap around the city. The taste of blood seeps into his soul, coats it in a crimson instead of the black tar of guilt. It helps but only for a moment. 

He doesn't leave him alone though. Lap by lap he passes him, immovable and stoic, standing beside the lap. He refuses to look at him and continues on with his laps quickening his pace no matter how hard his lungs protest it. He needs to be better, stronger, smarter, quicker. He needs to be everything he hasn't been before, because that caused all of this. If he just pushes himself a bit further, a bit harder, he knows he'll be the man Wash always thought he could be. Just a bit more, just a few laps more. 

He stands on the rooftop of an abandoned building by the outskirts of town that night. His legs shake and barely hold his weight after the hours he spent on the track. He shakes with the effort of standing up when he appears beside him. He doesn't look at him, even though he wants to. There's nothing in the world he wants more, and yet he stubbornly stares at the horizon. 

"Hey Tucker-" He says and as he turns to face him he sees blood pouring out of his neck, staining his armor in a crimson shine that glimmers in the sunset. The blood pours out like the water from a tap and it doesn't stop. It pools around his legs and climbs up his legs as he stares at the cold visor only seeing his own terrified reflection in it. 

The blood is hot, fresh and sticky and it climbs, and climbs and encompasses him entirely, swiftly and efficiently and just as it rushes over his head he hears the question that plagues him in the middle of the night, every time he closes his eyes, every time he tastes blood in his mouth, every time he's alone with his thoughts. 

"Why didn't you save me Tucker? Did I not matter?"

He screams and suddenly he's alone and dry and on his knees screaming on the rooftop. He feels like he's drowning, his soul burdened with the weight of the tar starting to slowly slip away and suffocate him. He screams and there's no one to hear it. 

He follows him now. Silent and stoic as ever, only now he's stained and bloodied as he stands in his field of vision. He's of no use in briefings, at lunch, in training. All he can see and think about is him dying in front of his eyes. 

Even without the whispered words he knows the truth. He knows it's his fault, his fault he lost another friend, another leader, another loved one. He hears them both whisper to him at night, then during the day until it's all he hears. His ears ring and his soul sinks with the weight of the tar pouring onto it.

He tries arguing, explaining, pleading, begging, he tries everything but nothing he does makes the pain go away. He follows him, leaving dark marks after him as he does, all the while whispering that one question over and over again. 

"Why?"

He doesn't know how to answer that.

He's admitted to the care of Dr. Grey after he collapses from exhaustion in the training room. For the first time in the months after it happened he sleeps peacefully without the persistent shadow that follows him, without the cold and clammy hand that tries to pull him into the black inky void with him. He sleeps without any dreams. And when he wakes up, he's still there but the endless stream of blood has vanished, and the shine of his grey armor greets him.

It takes only a few weeks for him to start to lose sleep over the situation yet again. No matter how hard he tries sleep evades him and the pills Dr. Grey gave him sit unused on the bedside table. He knows he shouldn't be afraid of them, those tiny pills that rattle inside that bottle like a snake ready to strike but he can't open the bottle no matter how hard he tries. He doesn't want to get rid of the figure that accompanies him, he can't stand the thought of loosing him again. Not again. 

Never again.

In a fit of rage he chucks them out of the window only to regret it later when he's so exhausted that he can't even cry. 

He appears worse for wear the longer he doesn't sleep. The bags under his eyes mirror the amount of crimson on the steel armor he sees where ever he goes. 

He doesn't talk about it to anybody. He likes the reds but he's absolutely not comfortable with talking about this with them. Caboose wouldn't understand, Carolina's dealing with the loss of him in her own way, Kimball seems too distant, Dr. Grey too- understanding. He laughs when he understands that the person he would be able to talk about this is the one person he cannot talk about it with anymore.

It takes him a while to understand what is going on. The solution is so simple that it makes him angry that he didn't figure it out sooner. After a few mild tests he concludes that the figure, Wash, almost mimics him. When he's sleeping poorly, not eating, pushing himself too hard the figure seems more and more grotesque, the armor stained with blood and quick to blame him. When he sleeps better, when he eats and laughs he figure is still there, but more mild, more Wash-like just standing and almost like he's- guarding him.

That realization hits him like a freight train. 

"I miss you so much." He whispers one night on the roof as the sun drops below the horizon as Wash stands beside him. Blood has only just started to pour out of him again, as he feels the weight of those last few nights of insomnia. He realizes he's shaking as he looks at Wash, who stands as immovable as ever. The smell of iron fills the air as he watches his blood flow down those familiar shapes, all the valleys of the armor, of the texture of the under armor. 

"Why?"

He realizes he's crying as the first sob tears through him. He closes his eyes. 

"Why?" 

He's shaking like a leaf in the wind as his grief runs through him finally collapsing his knees as he falls on his knees in the puddle of blood gathering around their feet. His hand is sticky and covered in it and he can't focus on anything else than the blurry shade of red on his violently shaking hand. 

"I'm so sorry Wash." He croaks between rib breaking sobs. He's so tired, so exhausted, so torn down. "I wish it would've been me. It _should've_ been me."

"Tucker?"

He whips around at the sound of his name to see Carolina stand hesitantly a few feet away from him. As he turns back he realizes that Wash is gone and his extended hand is clean. 

"You alright?"

He chuckles that turn into sobs in his throat as he sinks deeper onto his knees before sitting down properly to watch the stars twinkle above them as the chill of the night dries his tears into salty stripes on his face.

"Splendid." He answers and rubs his face with his sleeves as he hears Carolina sit down beside him. She hands him a bottle that he gulps down without hesitation, feeling the sweet burn of the alcohol make its way down his body leaving a trail of fake warmth behind it. 

"Did he ever talk to you about stars?" Carolina asks after a few moments of silence as Tucker tries his hardest to suppress the remainder of the painful soundless sobs that rock his body like hiccoughs.

"What?"

"He loved stargazing." Carolina continues as she watches the stars twinkle above them in their silent dance. Her smile is so genuine that it takes his breath away. "I used to make fun of him when we were on the MOI. He looked so nerdy as he sat by the windows with his nose so close to the window I was sure he was leaving marks."

"He taught me and Caboose the names of some of them." He confesses as he looks up. 

"That sounds like him." Carolina laughs softly before taking another sip of her drink. "He tried it at the MOI as well, though I don't think anybody listened to him."

"Caboose never remembered the names so we made up our own." Tucker says and this time he joins Carolina in laughter. 

The silence is heavy as they both look up at the stars. Tucker runs his fingers on the cold glass of the bottle as Carolina sips hers. 

"I never thought it would've been down to me and him." Carolina says finally with a emptiness in her voice. "The last ones. He told me he knew I would be the last one. I guess he was right in the end."

"Agent Cockroach." Tucker mutters silently looking down at the empty bottle in his hands. His stomach is heavy with something else than the alcohol. Carolina smiles but he can see the glimmer of tears in her eyes.

"I miss him so much." 

"I miss him too."


End file.
